DENR pushes ban on entry of smoke-belching vehicles in schools

Tens of thousands of school children all over the country joined hands last week to participate in the launching of a campaign to ban the entry of smoke-belching vehicles in their respective school premises.

Called Bantay Tambutso sa Eskwela, the campaign forms part of the government’s call for various sectors to get their act together in trying to improve the quality of the air that we breathe.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Mike Defensor said "no Filipino should be deprived of their right to breathe clean air and none of us can afford to continue breathing polluted air."

Bantay Tambutso is one of three components in the Linis Hangin Program, specifically focusing on vehicular sources which comprise the bigger bulk of the air pollution problem in the cities of the country. Linis Hangin Program’s two other components are Bantay Tsimineya, focusing on the industrial sources of air pollution, and the Bantay Sunog-Basura, seeking to address air pollution’s area sources such as open burning of garbage.

The central office of the Environmental Management Bureau of the DENR, with its offices in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions 3, 4, 7 and 11, in cooperation with the Metro Manila Air Quality Improvement Sector Development Program, and the United States Agency for International Development-assisted Energy and Clean Air Project, are readying the groundwork for heightened networking and advocacies among the academic administrators, teachers, student leaders, and motor pool in-charge of the selected schools in their geographical jurisdictions, for coordinated pursuits towards cleaner air.

Various fora on the Clean Air Act directives for vehicular sources of air pollution, preventive maintenance of vehicles for cleaner air and cost savings, building smoke-belching free campuses, and the roles and commitments of school sectors in the Bantay Tambutso component of the Linis Hangin Program, are being conducted. Free vehicle emission testing sessions at different universities are also going on and had been lined up.